Arvind Ramanathan, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Molecular physiology of skeletal muscle regeneration, aging and the formation of tumors
Dr. Ramanathan is taking an integrative approach to answer fundamental questions in aging and musculoskeletal regeneration. His research career has spanned single DNA molecule microscopy, genomics, chemical biology, mTOR biology, skeletal muscle differentiation, cancer metabolism and metabolomics. He has recently used metabolomics and chemical biology to discover metabolic dependencies induced by oncogenes including ras, he has also identified metabolic signals that mediate mTOR signaling and skeletal muscle differentiation. Using mass-spectrometric and imaging based approaches his laboratory addresses the following questions: What are the molecular signals that integrate nutrients, and organismal and cellular physiology with tissue regeneration? And by what mechanisms does aging affect these molecular signals? How do oncogenic mutations remodel cellular metabolism?
Dr. Ramanathan was born in Pondicherry, India. He earned a doctorate in chemistry from New York University. He carried out his graduate work at New York University and University of Wisconsin Biotechnology Center. His post-doctoral work was performed at Harvard University under the mentorship of Prof. Stuart L. Schreiber, and at the Chemical Biology Program at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT as a research fellow. He joined the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in 2011 as assistant professor.
“Elucidation of these questions will transform our ability to therapeutically and behaviorally engineer specific physiological signals that might improve skeletal muscle function in pathological states like aging, musculoskeletal injury and cancer.”
- Arvind Ramanathan, PhD